At the International Journalism Festival: Can Data Journalism Save Newsrooms?

PERUGIA, Italy — Here at the [International Journalism Festival](http://www.journalismfestival.com/) the launch of three large initiatives have generated a lot of the buzz around the topic of data journalism.

[The School of Data Journalism](http://blog.okfn.org/2012/02/02/diving-into-data-the-school-of-data-journalism-at-the-international-journalism-festival-in-perugia/), organized by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation, is composed of three panels and five workshops and dives into some of the key issues that media organizations are currently considering: “Is it worth my while starting out trying to do data journalism?”, “Will data journalism make us money?”, “How do you get data that you can search, filter and analyze with a computer?” and “How do I make data stories sexy?”

In addition, the 58 nominations for the [Data Journalism Awards](http://datajournalismawards.org/nominees/) (DJA) were announced. DJA is the first international competition that recognizes and showcases the great work done in data journalism. Prizes are awarded for data-driven applications, investigations, and storytelling through visualizations. It’s hoped that these awards will encourage more news organizations to embark on more ambitious data projects and alleviate the “loneliness in the newsroom” which some data journalists experience when their colleagues don’t understand what they do. The six winners will be announced May 31.

And on Saturday, the [Data Journalism Handbook](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/) will be launched. The handbook was born at the Mozilla Festival in November. It’s a collection of tips, anecdotes and case studies from more than 70 leading data journalists and data wranglers, including contributions from The New York Times, Zeit Online, the BBC, the Guardian and many more. The book will be an open educational resource with key lessons a beginner data journalist should know. You can see a chapter overview of the handbook [here](http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/21/sneak-peek-inside-the-data-journalism-handbook/) and an excerpt from the first chapter [here](http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/25/data-journalism-handbook-why-is-data-journalism-important/). A free version will be available online at [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org), and an e-book and print version will soon be published by [O’Reilly Media](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025603.do).

So what is data journalism?

The [School of Data Journalism](http://mediashift.org/idealab/2012/04/spending-stories-to-dive-into-data-at-the-international-journalism-festival328.html), a series of panel discussions and workshops at the festival, was led by leading practitioners from all over the world and aimed to show participants what data journalists can do and why they should take the plunge and learn new skills.

The definition of data journalism varies depending on whom you ask. For some journalists, it’s simply the courage to tackle sometimes huge and messy datasets. For others, it’s being transparent and open about “showing the working” behind their conclusions, backing up their stories with facts and numbers where one might previously have only evidenced their point with “he said/she said.” For others, it’s a new way of presenting data through visualizations and interactive news applications; news is no longer simply static words on a page.

Increasingly, though, many are coming to realize that data journalism is a set of skills, involving new methods for acquiring, analyzing and working with data which simply weren’t computationally feasible before. In an age that is positively drowning in data, we need more data journalists who typically have better storytelling skills than statisticians and can act as translators of complex datasets for the benefit of the public.

As activist and author [Heather Brooke](http://journalismfestival.tumblr.com/post/21908820868/information-wants-to-be-free-with-steve-doig-and) put it in the “Information wants to be free” workshop, data journalism is a misnomer — one doesn’t say “telephone journalism” if you contact your sources via telephone; journalists have to use data to do their job well.

Guerrilla Tactics: how to get started with Data Journalism

In the first panel of the school, “From Computer Assisted Reporting to Data Journalism,” Pulitzer Prize winners Sarah Cohen and Steve Doig, highlighted their experiences working in the United States, where the notion of Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) has been around for several decades — far longer than the budding data journalism scene here in Europe.

They described their experiences learning how to use tools and techniques — unfamiliar to journalists but popular in other disciplines such as social science and history — to stay at the cutting edge of journalism. They also described the “guerrilla tactics” they initially had to use to get their work into print. “If you produce an amazing visualization, your editor is going to find a way to get it published,” Cohen said, adding that it’s far easier to show someone what data journalism is than to explain what it is.

Next up, [Aron Pilhofer](https://twitter.com/#!/pilhofer) described his journey to data journalism at the New York Times. He said it came from a feeling of frustration with the inefficiency of working practices and tools. This sentiment resonated strongly with the other panelists — a common complaint concerned individual journalists holding onto their data, producing datasets that only they could understand, instead of resources that could be built on and expanded by others on their teams.

On the same panel, Elisabetta Tola of [formicablu](http://www.formicablu.it/) and Simon Rogers of the Guardian gave a European perspective on data journalism. Rogers demonstrated how the Guardian Datablog’s interactive maps of the U.K. riots helped disband false statements by the government that the “riots were not about poverty.” Tola then explained some of the more basic problems facing wannabe data journalists in Italy, some of whom would be lucky to get data even on paper, as it’s common for officials to simply dictate the numbers to journalists.

The second panel, “How can data journalism save your newsroom?”, examined perspectives and business models for data journalism, and attempted to answer the question: “Is it worth it?”

[Caelainn Barr](https://twitter.com/#!/caelainnbarr) of Citywire urged journalists not to consider data journalism as a fix-all for any problem in the newsroom. She warned that editors are unlikely to be considerate and give you more time just because you’re using complex data or working hard to present it better. Barr said journalists are constantly playing a game of catchup; advertisers are moving elsewhere; and journalists have less time to produce their stories and are struggling to keep up. All of this means journalists have to be more agile and learn to do things more efficiently.

To solve this problem, Pilhofer said, the New York Times has built resources that live on for future stories, allowing both journalists and the interactive news team to spring into action as soon as a related story breaks.

“What is the simplest thing you can do to start with data journalism?” ProPublica’s Dan Nguyen asked rhetorically. “Keep your notes in a spreadsheet.” He said often, the skills required to find stories involve sorting, grouping and averaging the data. With skills this simple, can newsrooms really afford not to teach them to their journalists?

The Future of Journalism is Bold

What does the future look like for data journalism? “Data journalism is just becoming journalism,” said the Guardian’s Rogers — which was possibly the most encouraging statement from any of the panelists here.

Data journalism is no longer limited to only those who can afford to pay $900 for a piece of visualization software. Now incredibly powerful, open-source solutions are available.

However, a change in culture will be needed to get more journalists into the fold. As Tola explained, collaboration is key, both journalist-journalist and journalist-coder collaboration. As Wired Italia’s Guido Romeo put it, “Journalism is a one-man band. Data journalism is clearly not.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Could Italy be a land of opportunity for data journalism? The enthusiasm with which the workshops were met gave the impression that he who dares first will have a serious competitive advantage.

[The workshops will continue over the next couple of days](http://blog.okfn.org/2012/02/02/diving-into-data-the-school-of-data-journalism-at-the-international-journalism-festival-in-perugia/), and many have spaces open. Any budding data journalists? Join us!

Who We Are

MediaShift is the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. The MediaShift network includes MediaShift, EducationShift, MetricShift and Idea Lab, as well as workshops and weekend hackathons, email newsletters, a weekly podcast and a series of DigitalEd online trainings.